Ace and Hex are running from .. something! It's huge! It's gigantic! It's going to blow! As Hex gets covered in what can only be described as a metric ton of booger.
Ace laments that they never go anywhere nice, so after browsing through a few brochures they chose Tuin's Twin Moon festival promising rest and relaxation, as well as over hundreds of kinds of ale.
As soon as they arrive, they're Mistaken for Spies and two warring factions are trying to use the festival's purpose for their own dark needs... And who are the Dark Husband... And the Shining Wife?
- A God Am I: Tuin.
- And Then What?:"Not if, but when the prophecy comes true, and this war, this ancient war ends... Then what?"
- The Bait: Ace forces Hex to be one.
- Batman Cold Open: Ace and Hex are on the run from what the Doctor later calls a Snotmonster.
- Batman Gambit: One gets pulled on Ace and Hex by provoking them to "save" the Doctor's life.
- Beam Me Up, Scotty!: Hex and Ace banter about "Elementary, my dear Watson".
- Boisterous Bruiser: Ori.
- Brain Uploading: The Bards of Tuin are two "Data discs" of all the souls and memories of Tuin in the form of two stone golems.
- Buffy Speak: "A giant zappy shooty gun".
- Bureaucratically Arranged Marriage: The Doctor arranges one for himself.
- Busman's Holiday: Ace wants to go on a holiday, which takes them to the Festival of the Twin Moons of Tuin, but this wouldn't be Doctor Who if things stayed quiet.
- Call-Back: The Doctor mentions it's only logical he's the "Dark Husband" because he couldn't have been the "Shining Bride" in "this regeneration", quite possibly referring to Peter Davison (and prefiguring Jodie Whittaker by a few years, too).
- Chaos Architecture: The Doctor mentions the TARDIS does this from time to time, and needs to be reminded which corridor the bathroom is located in.
- The Chessmaster: It's implied that the Doctor put the brochures in the TARDIS to ignite an idea of a holiday to Tuin.
- Cold Flames: Meant to trick Ace into action.
- Deadpan Snarker: Irit has a snarky comment for nearly every sentence Orit utters.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The Festival of the Twin Moons of Tuin.Hex: So what is it?
- Failed a Spot Check: The Doctor shouts at Hex he's "over a ridge" and Hex nearly literally walks into it.
- Forever War: The Ri and the Ir have been at war for over 10 000 years.
- For Inconvenience, Press "1": The Bards of Tuin after demanding "Who summoned the Bards of Tuin!?" followed by "Press 1 for Student, 2 for Academic, 3 for Tourist and 4 to go back to the start."
- Genius Loci:The Doctor: It's Tuin! The planet Tuin! It's...Alive.
- Gods Need Prayer Badly: Tuin believes this, and arranges quite a lot of this. It's uncertain whether or not it's actually needed.
- Golem: The two "bards" which are made entirely out of (warm) stone.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Orin and Irit join together in matrimony at the end to save the Doctor, Ace and Hex.
- Human Sacrifice: Well, an alien sacrifice at first sight.
- "I Know You Are in There Somewhere" Fight: The Doctor pulls this towards the Dark Husband and the Shining Wife.
- I'm A Nurse Not A Person That Knows What Kind Of Thing That Is
- Long List: The Bards of Tuin start mentioning over 500 council members of the old Tuin council. There's no fast forward.
- Mistaken for Spies: Happens literally the moment they arrive on a new planet.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The Doctor has a brochure cabinet full of places with names like "The Death Well of Mindar" and "The Eyeboiling vat of Pain at Fringan."
- No Indoor Voice: Ori seems to reach BRIAN BLESSED!!!!! levels of Ham most of the time.
- Noodle Incident: The Doctor mentions Stonehenge was only stone "Until someone found the on-switch".
- "Not So Different" Remark: Ori and Irit realize they both have Hidden Depths and that they're alike.
- Pardon My Klingon: Ori calls Hex "Hox" because Hex means something... Well it means something, Ori draws it on the table
- Placebo Effect: Hex thinks he and Ori are getting plastered whilst all the ale during the festival is strictly alcohol free. There's a war on, you know.
- Proud Warrior Race Guy: Ori and the Ri race seem to consist out of Boisterous Bruisers
- Pun: "What's at stake here is you Doctor!"
- Punny Name: The Ir and the Ri together sound "Eerie".
- Also Tuin and its Twin moons.
- Samus Is a Girl / Viewer Gender Confusion: Hex is surprised as first time listeners would be to find out that Ori is in fact, female.
- Shotgun Wedding: Namedropped.
- Shout-Out: Hex calls one of the Ri "Simply Red".
- When the Doctor says he figured something out and it was "Elementary", Hex finishes off with a "Dear Watson" (And Ace immediately follows with that it was a Beam Me Up, Scotty!)
- Slipping a Mickey: The Doctor handles Ori and Irit this way. Ace even namedrops "Mickey Flynn".
- Smooch of Victory: Ace kisses the Doctor after she gets freed from the influence of Tuin, saying that the Doctor spurring her on of "Thinking of things she loves" made her think of him.
- Synthetic Plague: The Ri mentions that the Ir dropped a "Plague Bomb" onto one of the Ri cities.
- Taking You with Me: Tuin attempts it.
- Tears of Joy: Ori cries while uttering: "I always cry at weddings".
- Terraform: What Tuin appears to be a faulty device of.
- Two of Your Earth Minutes: Lampshaded 500 Tuin Years, which the Doctor says is approximately 500 Earth years.
- Weaksauce Weakness: The golems try to kill the Doctor and his companions at one point, they defeat them by pressing the one.
- Your Mom: Hex employs one of these as an insult while trying to be The Bait.